Conventional bumper structures most often have a cross member made out of steel or aluminum. The steel cross members are most often assembled out of several parts, which even though making it possible to flexibly adjust the shape of the cross beam to the exterior skin of a bumper it is intended to support, at the same time makes manufacturing the cross beam complicated and correspondingly expensive. Aluminum cross members are most often designed as extruded profiles. While extruded profiles are easy and inexpensive to fabricate, they disadvantageously allow only a little flexibility in terms of shape, so that supporting the exterior skin of a bumper that does not conform precisely to the shape of the cross member requires additional components or processing steps, which cancels out the cost advantage of the extruded profile.